Vinnie Jones is the topic of a new tell-all Netflix show which looked back at his whole career – from the Wimbledon pitch all the way to Hollywood along with Brad Pitt
Hardman footballer-turned actor Vinnie Jones has said his biggest regret is not giving up drinking 20 years earlier. The former Wimbledon legend is the topic of a new Netflix documentary out on May 26.
During the show – Untold UK: Vinnie Jones – the star describes his journey from football’s most feared brute of a player straight to Hollywood as a big action star. Vinnie admitted: “My biggest regret is not giving up drinking probably 20 years beforehand. I tried it but never stuck at it. I think I’d have achieved a lot more without the booze. When I first went to Wimbledon on trial, I never had a drink for a year. I wanted to be the fittest I could be. And then I fell into the culture.”
Vinnie, who still holds the record for the most red cards in English topflight history, has been sober since 2013 – 15 years after the release of his iconic Guy Ritchie feature in crime comedy Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels.
He said of alcohol: “It got hold of me. The more you drink, the more crazy you get and the more b***ocks you cause. Your reputation gets bigger and more out of hand.
“So maybe my biggest regret is not giving up the booze a long time ago. I wasn’t a drinker or a smoker growing up – it was just football.
“It was all part of being part of the Crazy Gang. I think I’d have been a lot better player if I hadn’t drunk through my career.
“But when you’re a young lad from a building site and the next minute you’re playing in front of 50,000 people, you never think it’s going to end.”
As for the Crazy Gang, a bunch of Wimbledon football stars in the 1980s and 1990s, Vinnie reflected: “It wasn’t so much crazy – it was Borstal boys.
“It was lads that were just on a crest of a wave. We all couldn’t believe that we were professional footballers and we were all in this gang.
“You know when you grow up, you think you’re going to have those mates for the rest of your life. Because we had each other’s backs. That was the main thing.
“If you took on one of us, you took on all of us. We played the Millwalls and the Portsmouths. They were supposed to have a few hardmen.
“But three hardmen is no good against 11 hardmen, you know what I mean? “I remember we had a big punch-up at Chelsea and when we played the video back, Dave Beasant [Wimbledon FC goalkeeper] had run half the length of the pitch and he was in there throwing punches.
“It was the same in the tunnels. We were very raw and untamed.
“We didn’t know the rules and we didn’t give a s*** about the rules. None of the other teams or players knew who we were.”
The docu explores moments in Vinnie’s career – from a £20,000 fine and six-month suspended ban in 1992 for his part in a telly show called Soccer’s Hard Men that glorified violence, to the moment he grabbed Paul Gascgoine by his privates.
Vinnie added: “Life is about climbing that greasy pole. But you’ve got to make that mark. You’ve got to seize that moment.”
Friend and teammate John Fashanu said on the show: “It was brilliant because he scared so many people. In the midfield, he’d come in for a tackle like a monster, and even we would be thinking, ‘Wow.’
“After the tackle, he’d roll up his sleeves, look around, and say, ‘Who’s next? You want some?’ I was just happy he was on my side.”
Vinnie then went on to appear in more than 100 films and TV shows. After buying a Hollywood mansion and impressing movie star Brad Pitt, Vinnie felt he finally reached the peak of his career.
He said: “Ultimately my football career is over. I know I’ve got that screen presence. I had it on the football field, I just transferred it to the screen.
“I looked around and thought ‘how did I get here? This is insane.’ I sit here now and still say ‘this is f***ing insane.’
“Over the years, I’ve taken as many knocks as I’ve given, but I’ve grabbed every opportunity I can.
“I’ve made my mark. You can’t stay on the same ledge. You’ve got to look up.”